Mind-Munitions

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars 151
revolution adopted a crusading zeal; forced to defend Liberty
against the forces of foreign absolutism, the revolution now
assumed the offensive in the name of ‘Universal Republicanism’.
The victory at Valmy was in many respects a lucky one. The
revolution, with its egalitarian ideals, had greatly weakened the
French army by eroding discipline and structured command (60
per cent of officers joined the aristocratic emigration). But the
entry of Britain into the war in 1793 turned the conflict into a pan-
European struggle in which revolutionary fervour was not, by
itself, sufficient to motivate the ordinary men and women who
were now involved in continuing the struggle. Discipline and
training were increased, tactics developed, and strategy improved.
Even so, the French revolutionary armies were very different from
previous armies in their psychological motivation. For the first
time, the interests of the individual were recognized to be bound up
with those of the nation. These citizen-armies fought, not for
money or because they were forced to: they fought for a cause, a
common cause in which their individual interests were recognized
to be the same as those of their country: ‘every citizen ought to be
a soldier, and every soldier a citizen’. Payment was a reward, not
an incentive; discipline was self-imposed, not enforced; obedience
a duty rather than a sign of submission. The identification of the
army as an instrument of the people, rather than as something
separate from the society as a whole, was a major departure – or
rather, a return to classical antiquity. The difference now was scale,
as wave after wave of new levies joined the new Grand Army.
With this forged unity between a nation and its army, military
propaganda fused with civic propaganda. Municipal celebrations
or fêtes, marriages, and even baptisms always included soldiers,
because everyone was a soldier of the revolution. Fêtes were an
essential means of raising troops and celebrating their departure as
a means of enhancing collective identification with the revolutionarypatriotic
cause. However, given the uncertainty of many army units
in the immediate aftermath of 1789, specific campaigns were
launched. One such campaign involved the publicizing of the new
Constitution in 1793 and the swearing of a new oath of allegiance.
The commanding general in Cambrai described the event as follows:
It is necessary to be a republican to fully grasp the effect which was
produced by the entrance of the cortège into the centre of the troops
drawn up in the square. One could see that during the reading these